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Arts & entertainment, design & style, travel & leisure, search concrete playground, taronga zoo's sky safari cable car is retiring after 35 years, then getting a huge upgrade.

You've got until the end of January to take a last sky-high ride in the cable car in its current guise.

Talk about going out on top: Sky Safari , a mainstay of Sydney's Taronga Zoo since 1987, is saying farewell. The sky-high cable car — the Harbour City's only cable car, in fact — has been a beloved part of a trip to the animal-filled tourist attraction for a huge 35 years. But, once February 2023 arrives, it's retiring in its current guise.

That means that Sydney locals and visitors alike have until Tuesday, January 31 to go for a last spin, which includes views of the Sydney Harbour, peering down at Taronga's Asian elephants as they play and attempting to see squirrel monkeys. But, hopefully, this is just a goodbye-for-now situation, with an upgrade already planned — pending final approval.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Taronga Zoo (@tarongazoo)

"The current Sky Safari is an ageing asset and has reached the end of its workable life with Taronga," explained the zoo's team announcing the news.

"Plans are underway for an exciting new experience. While we are in early stages of planning, the revitalised Sky Safari will feature additional larger and accessible gondolas, extend along an expanded route, and provide greater access to the zoo for guests of all ages and abilities," the statement continues.

Destination NSW

Last upgraded in 2000, and even carrying the Olympic Torch for the Sydney Olympics that same year, the Sky Safari has carried more than 20 million passengers over its lifetime, helping ferry zoo-goers around the 28-hectare site. In its absence, there'll be extra buses in holiday and peak periods to move patrons to Taronga's top entrance.

When 2025 hits, that's when the new Sky Safari is aiming to start operating, as part of a major investment by the New South Wales Government that'll also help future-proof it as much as possible — and Taronga itself. Announced back in April 2022, Sky Safari 2.0 is set to gain more gondolas than the 21 currently used, and larger and more accessible ones at that. At the moment, it can't accommodate guests in bigger wheelchairs, which is something that's set to be addressed

The revamped Sky Safari will also head along an expanded route, complete with new terminals. That'll connect to fellow upgrades that are in the works at the Taronga Zoo Wharf — and, thanks to those extra gondolas, increase Sky Safari's daily capacity. And, Taronga visitors will also gain additional ways to view the venue's inhabitants from a lofty perch.

At the time of writing, the makeover proposal is still in the planning stage, and accepting community feedback . Ideally, a development application will be lodged in 2023, with construction starting before the year is out.

Taronga Zoo's Sky Safari will take its last ride in its current form on Tuesday, January 31, 2023. Head to the zoo's website for further details, and for bookings before the end of the month.

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Taronga Zoo’s Sky Safari to close after 35 years

The much-loved attraction has been in operation for 35 years, having opened in 1987.

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Taronga Zoo’s Sky Safari - which transports visitors over animal enclosures by cable car on their way into the park - is set to close.

“After 35 wonderful years, our current Sky Safari is set for retirement and will take its last ride on January 31, 2023,” the zoo revealed.

“Over its lifetime, it has transported more than 20 million passengers, including a royal or two, and even carried the Olympic torch.

“The current Sky Safari is an ageing asset, and has sadly reached the end of its workable life with significant upgrades needed for it to continue to operate.”

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If the proposed upgrade to the cable cars is approved, it could re-open in 2025.

The zoo claims it would then be “an unforgettable and fully accessible family experience”.

Visitors to the park were distraught.

“My son is devastated!!!! Looking forward to hearing more about what’s to come,” one mum said.

“Oh that’s so sad. It’s always been a highlight for our family even with older teens,” another mother wrote.

“That’s a shame,” another added.

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More currencies, taronga zoo with ferry tickets + sky cable car ride.

Visit Australia’s premier zoo and marvel at its unique fauna with these tickets to Taronga Zoo. Get to the zoo easily by catching a ferry from one of three docks and avoiding the traffic on the roads. At the zoo, you can see 350 different species of animals, learn about their lives, and watch live shows. Finally, you can take a ride on the Sky Safari cable car and admire the gorgeous shorelines of Sydney Harbour from above.

• Experience the remarkable diversity of Australian fauna up close in Taronga Zoo.
• Avoid the traffic and travel to Taronga Zoo by rocket ferry, saving time that you can spend in the zoo.
• Explore the zoo at your own pace, visiting the many endemic creatures that dwell here and snapping pictures with them.
• Learn about the different animals in the enclosures, interact with koalas and wombats, watch live shows and much more!
• Take a ride on the Sky Safari cable car and see the beautiful Sydney Harbor shorelines from your vantage point high above.
• Ticket to Taronga Zoo with all day zoo access
• Round trip rocket ferry between Taronga Zoo and Circular Quay, Watsons Bay or Darling Harbour
• Round trip on the Sky Safari cable car
• Hotel Pick-Up/Drop-Off
• Other personal expenses

Cancellation policy

These tickets can't be cancelled or rescheduled.

What to Expect

Stroll through the lush taronga zoo.

These entry tickets to Sydney’s Taronga Zoo will give you a chance to meet Australia’s unique wildlife up close. This 100-year-old zoo has over 4000 animals of 350 different species, spread out over 69 acres and divided into eight geographic regions, many of whom you can visit and spend time with.

You can avoid the traffic on Sydney’s streets and take a ferry to the zoo from one of 3 piers. This will save you a significant amount of time that you can now spend at the zoo, as well as give you a different perspective on the picturesque zoo from the water.

After you redeem your tickets at the entry gate, you can wander through the zoo and explore its many attractions. Snap pictures with the kangaroos, wallabies, birds, wombats, echidnas, and reptiles that dwell in the zoo’s diverse habitats. Meet some of the (in)famous and quirky residents of the zoo, such as Luk Chai, the first ever elephant calf born in Australia, and the recent trio of Sumatran tiger cubs who are all set to make their first public appearances.

Spend the entire day getting to know the animals and their lives, with live shows and enclosure visits to boot. Finally, to end on a high note, head to the Safari Sky cable ride and admire the stunning views of the shorelines of Sydney Harbour from your aerial vantage point. A real treat for animal lovers, this is an experience you cannot afford to miss!

Know Before You Go

Important Information

• This activity is only available for passport holders from the following regions: Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Japan, Korea
• Tickets are valid for a single selected day and valid only on rocket ferries
• Ferries do not operate Christmas Day.
• Animal enclosures may be closed at the last minute to improve the habitats, thus some animals will not be visible during this time

** Timings and Availability**

The zoo is open in the following time slots:

• May to Aug: 9:30 AM - 4:30 PM
• Sep to Apr: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
• New Year's Eve: 9:30 AM - 4:00 PM

The docks are open during the following times:

• Darling Harbour, Pier 26: 9:15 AM - 5:40 PM
• Circular Quay, Wharf No.6: 9:35 AM - 5:20 PM
• Taronga Zoo Wharf: 9:45 AM - 5:05 PM

** Dress Code **

Since the zoo covers a fair amount of ground, we recommend you put on some comfortable shoes to walk with ease.

** Accessibility **

This experience is wheelchair accessible.

Reduced Price Tickets

• Children (aged 4-15) are eligible for reduced prices. Please select the appropriate option on the last page.
• Infants (aged 0-3) can visit for free.

Taronga Zoo: Bradley's Head Road, Mosman, NSW 2088

Getting There

How to get to the docks for boarding the ferry:

Darling Harbour, Pier 26, Sydney

• 10-minute walking from Town Hall metro station

Circular Quay, Wharf No.6, Sydney

• 5-minute walking from Circular Quay metro station

Taronga Zoo Wharf, Sydney

• 1-minute walking from Taronga Zoo Wharf metro station

How to Redeem Your Tickets

Your Taronga Zoo Entry Ticket voucher will be emailed to you shortly. You may display the voucher on your mobile device with a valid photo ID at the ticket counter.

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TRANSFORMING A MUCH LOVED VISITOR EXPERIENCE ABOVE TARONGA ZOO

an iconic and unforgettable zoo and harbour experience

Taronga Zoo has been at the heart of Sydney’s community for more than a century. As a world leading Zoological and Conservation organisation, the zoo is located in one of the best and most loved harbours in the world.

Taronga Conservation Society Australia (TCSA) is a recognised world leader in wildlife conservation and tourism and offers expertise, support, education and inspiration in conservation and experience initiatives to visitors from NSW and Australian communities, as well as visitors from around the world.

Since 1987, the Sky Safari has provided families and visitors an experience in connecting up from Sydney Harbour and the ferry, over the steep terrain of the Zoo, to the historic entrance off Bradleys Head Road.

The new Sky Safari Project will transform this into an unforgettable and accessible family experience, through recent NSW State Government funding. The project will attract new and repeat visitors to Taronga Zoo by elevating the overall integrated zoo experience, offering an iconic cable car ride providing guests with panoramic views and the most scenic way to experience the most beautiful natural harbour in the world.

Importantly it will allow a ‘hop on / hop off” way to move guests of all ages and abilities conveniently around different parts of the zoo through the four cable car stations.  Through integration of indigenous storytelling and education, the project will enable visitors to learn about the deep history of the land and the conservation work that Taronga Zoo provides.

Scott Carver is providing Lead Architectural and Landscape Architecture design services, collaborating with Kay Elliot Architects, UK (who are leading the creative masterplan process), FCAD (First Nations consultation) and specialist cable car consultants in designing and delivering what will be an iconic and unforgettable zoo and harbour experience.

https://taronga.org.au/sydney-zoo/must-see/sky-safari

• 1.5km cable car experience
• 4 Cable Car Stations

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Project Team

Doug Southwell

• Senior Associate, Architecture

Karen Sangster

Nicholas Bandounas

• Registered Architect

Rebecca Hawkett

• Associate, BIM Manager | Architecture

Darren Horsfield

• Architectural Graduate

Nathan Gonsalves

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Taronga Zoo Sky Safari to undergo revamp

The Sky Safari cable car at Sydney's Taronga Zoo is set to undergo an $81 million upgrade, which will make the experience bigger, better and faster.

The cable car was launched in 1987 and last revamped in 2000, with the next generation gondola set to open in 2025.

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What are you looking for?

Come and have a last ride with us, after 35 years of the high life, taronga zoo’s sky safari is retiring..

And what a fun filled 35 years it has been.

First installed to its iconic position in 1987 and then upgraded in 2000, the Sky Safari is one of Taronga's most loved experiences and has transported more than 20 million passengers over its lifetime - from Sydney locals, international guests and celebrities, (hundreds of thousands of Zoo Friends), to even a Royal or two. She’s starred in several of your favourite TV shows, including Who’s Who in the Zoo and Beauty and the Geek, and even carried the Olympic Torch for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. 

Time flies when you’re having fun, but the time has come for the Sky Safari to retire on 31 January 2023, and we’re sending her off in style. 

We’re inviting our Zoo Friends to come and enjoy a special VIP Twilight Ride on Monday 30th January from 5 – 7pm . 

• Includes 1 x Roundtrip per family/group from Top Station only.  
• Late opening of Zoo  
• Top Plaza Retail and Café open until late. 

How to be part of the Sky Safari VIP Twilight ride: 

• Click the ‘Register’ button below 
• Select your preferred time slot for your VIP ride and complete the registration form

Please note that due to the high demand for this event the wait times for the Sky Safari round trip may be longer than normal. We appreciate your patience on the night as we celebrate Sky Safari’s retirement. 

It’s farewell for now, however this is just the beginning.   Find out more about our plans for the Sky Safari and other projects as we create a zoo for the future here . 

We proudly Acknowledge the Cammeraigal (Taronga Zoo, Sydney) and Wiradjuri (Taronga Western Plains Zoo, Dubbo) people, their Country, spirit and traditions as customary owners of the lands upon which our Zoos stand.

Thank you for visiting Taronga!

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Norilsk: The city built by gulag prisoners where Russia guards its Arctic secrets

Environmental activists are frustrated by how authorities handled a diesel spill which poured into two Arctic rivers in late May.

International correspondent @DiMagnaySky

Friday 3 July 2020 23:41, UK

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The drive from Norilsk airport to the city takes you past mile after mile of crumbling, Soviet-era factories.

It looks like an endless, rusting scrapyard - a jumble of pipes, industrial junk and frost-bitten brickwork. If you were looking for an industrial apocalypse film setting, this would be your place - but you're unlikely to get the permissions.

Norilsk was built in Stalin's times by gulag prisoners. This gritty industrial city is a testament to their endurance both of the cruelty of Stalin's regime and of the harsh polar climate. There were no thoughts then on how to build to protect the environment, just to survive it.

Vasily Ryabinin doesn't think much has changed, at least in ecological terms. He used to work for the local branch of the federal environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, but quit in June after exposing what he says was a failure to investigate properly the environmental impact of the gigantic diesel spill which poured into two Arctic rivers in late May.

At 21,000 tonnes, it was the largest industrial spill in the polar Arctic .

Despite the Kremlin declaring a federal emergency and sending a host of different agencies to participate in the clean-up, just last week Mr Ryabinin and activists from Greenpeace Russia found another area where technical water used in industrial processes was being pumped directly into the tundra from a nearby tailing pond. Russia's investigative committee has promised to investigate.

"The ecological situation here is so bad," Mr Ryabinin says.

"The latest constructions such as the tailing pond at the Talnack ore-processing plant were built exclusively by Nornickel chief executive Vladimir Potanin's team and supposedly in accordance with ecological standards, but on satellite images you can see that all the lakes in the vicinity have unnatural colours and obviously something has got into them."

Mining company Nornickel would disagree. It has admitted flagrant violations at the tailing pond and suspended staff it deems responsible at both the Talnack plant and at Norilsk Heat and Power plant no 3 where the diesel spill originated from.

On Thursday it appointed Andrey Bougrov, from its senior management board, to the newly-created role of senior vice president for environmental protection. It has a clear environmental strategy, provides regular updates on the status of the spill, and its Twitter feed is filled with climate-related alerts.

But what investors read is very different to the picture on the ground.

Norilsk used to be a closed city - one of dozens across the Soviet Union shut off to protect industrial secrets. Foreigners need special permissions approved by the Federal Security Service (FSB) to enter the region. It would take an invitation from Nornickel to make that happen and, for the past month since the spill, that has not been forthcoming.

Unlike in Soviet times, Russian citizens are now free to come and go. That's why our Sky News Moscow team were able to fly in and travel around the city, even if getting to the spill site was blocked. What they were able to film provides a snapshot of the immense challenge Russia faces in upgrading its Soviet-era industrial infrastructure, particularly at a time when climate change is melting the permafrost on which much of it was built.

Just downwind from one of the rusting factories on the city outskirts is a huge expanse of dead land. The skeletal remains of trees stand forlorn against the howling Arctic winds. Sulphur dioxide poisoning has snuffed the life out of all that lived here. Norilsk is the world's worst emitter of sulphur dioxide by a substantial margin.

"For 80km south of here everything is dead," Mr Ryabinin says, "and for at least 10km in that direction too. Everything here depends on the wind."

Immediately after the spill, Mr Ryabinin filmed and took samples from the Daldykan river just a few kilometres from the fuel tank which had leaked. By that point the river was a churning mix of diesel and red sludge dredged up from the riverbed by the force of the leak. Norilsk's rivers have turned red before and the chemical residues have sunk to the bottom, killing all life there. Nothing has lived in those rivers for decades.

In his capacity as deputy head of the local environmental watchdog, Mr Ryabinin says he insisted that he be allowed to fly further north to check the levels of contamination in Lake Pyasino and beyond.

Nornickel at the time claimed the lake was untouched by the spill. Mr Ryabinin says his boss encouraged him to let things be.

"I can't be sure I would have found anything, but this sort of confrontation - making sure I didn't go there with a camera, let alone with bottles for taking samples, it was all very clear to me. It was the final straw."

Rosprirodnadzor refused to comment to Sky News on Mr Ryabinin's allegations or suggestions that the agency was working hand in hand with Nornickel.

Georgy Kavanosyan is an environmental blogger with a healthy 37,000 following on YouTube. Shortly after the spill, he set out for Lake Pyasino and to the Pyasina River beyond to see how far the diesel had spread.

"We set out at night so that the Norilsk Nickel security wouldn't detect us. I say at night, but they've got polar nights there now, north of the Arctic Circle. So it's still light but it's quieter and we managed to go past all the cordons."

He is one of the few to have provided evidence that the diesel has in fact travelled far beyond where the company admits. Not just the 1,200km (745m) length of Lake Pyasino but into the river beyond.

He says his measurements indicated a volume of hydrocarbons dissolved in the water of between two and three times normal levels. He thinks after he published his findings on YouTube, the authorities' vigilance increased.

Greenpeace Russia have spent the last two weeks trying to obtain samples from Lake Pyasino and the surrounding area. They have faced difficulties getting around and flying their samples out for independent analysis.

They are now waiting for results from a laboratory in St Petersburg but say the samples remain valid technically for just four days after collection and that they weren't able to make that deadline due to the authorities' actively obstructing their work.

Elena Sakirko from Greenpeace Russia specialises in oil spills and says this has happened to her before. This time, a police helicopter flew to the hunter's hut where they were staying and confiscated the fuel for the boat they were using. Then a deputy for the Moscow city parliament tasked with bringing the samples back from Norilsk was forced to go back empty-handed.

"We were told at the airport we needed permission from the security department of Nornickel," Ms Sakirko says. "We asked them to show us some law or statement to prove that this was legal or what the basis for this was, but they haven't showed us anything and we still don't understand it."

Nornickel announced this week that the critical stage of the diesel spill is over. The company is now finalising dates for a press tour for foreign media and for other international environmentalists.

Mr Ryabinin thinks this should have happened weeks ago.

"If we don't let scientists come to the Arctic region to evaluate the impact of the accident, then in the future if anything similar happens, we won't know what to do."

A spokesperson for Nornickel said the company "is actively cooperating with the scientific community and will meticulously assess both the causes and effects of the accident."

Nornickel considers permafrost thawing to be the primary cause of the accident, but is waiting for the end of investigation before making a final statement, the spokesperson said.

They added that the company "accepts full responsibility for the incidents on its sites these past two months and holds itself accountable for any infrastructural deficits or poor decisions by personnel.

"The imperative is to do everything to clean up our sites, instil a stronger culture of transparency and safety in our workforce, and ensure that such situations do not occur in the future."